The night deal and the reason for the upgrade to the KTM's lighting isn't because of doing planned night riding.

It has to do with daylight hours being eaten up while dealing with potential issues such as flats late in the day.

I don't know about your group, but here when I ride with the local Mexican riders, we usually end up riding at night. Someone usually drowns a bike or someone has a flat and then the daylight hours are gone.

From last Saturday's ride, The DRZ probably would have made it across if the carb vent tubes had a tee spliced with a couple of hoses ran up under the seat, but then hindsight is 20/20>

Fixing the usual flat, I learn something on every trip, for example, don't use X-heavy duty tubes, cuz harder to patch, and harder to push the stem in the wheel if you don't have a fishing tool, Also you can lube the bead with a few drops of oil off of your dipstick to slide the tire back on.

About riding at night, let someone else be the leader, hopefully with a light brighter than yours. I run a 8" HID La Paz race light along with a Rigid 3" LED. With oncoming traffic I flip the HID 8" light down to avoid getting flashed. You can never have too much light.